


There's Always Tomorrow

by callmeonetrack



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Banter, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 13:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9273236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmeonetrack/pseuds/callmeonetrack
Summary: Kara's having trouble getting back on her feet after her red moon crash, luckily she has Lee to lean on.





	

"So, you think we might actually make it to quarters sometime before the morning shift change?"

"Frak you, Apollo." Kara makes a half-grumble, half-sighing sound next to him, the thump of her crutches on the metal decking punctuating the sentiment, and Lee grins. It's rare he gets the chance to give Kara grief instead of the other way around, and he's relishing it. Besides, he'd never admit it, but that rush he felt, seeing her back up, in action, when she stepped onto the hangar deck a few hours ago…that still hasn't faded. Even if she is moving slower than his father's claps at the last fleetwide assembly. 

"You got a hot date tonight, go around." She pauses, twisting her head over her shoulder to smirk at him. "Though I'm pretty sure your right hand isn't going anywhere." 

He shakes his head, but doesn't lose the grin. Lee just speeds up, passes her, and singsongs, "Fine. Maybe tomorrow I'll talk to Chief about putting some tape down. Setting up a handicapped lane for you."

He counts:  _1, 2, 3..._ Before he gets to five, she's pushing past him, elbow jabbing him as she thunks the crutches down and swings herself forward. Kara pivots and stops right in front of him, shifts her weight onto her good leg and shoves the crutches at him.

Both eyebrows raise. “What the hell are you doing, Kara?”

She lifts her chin, stubbornly, eyes glittering. “Making you eat your frakking words? Even with a bum knee, I can still move faster than you, Apollo. Bet you twenty cubits.”

It’d be impressive—if she didn’t look like she might slump to the floor at any moment. Her skin is gray enough to rival the bulkheads, and she’s wincing even as she stands there with only half-weight on her right leg. Inwardly Lee curses, he shouldn’t have baited her. Should’ve cut off Chief’s endless supply of questions and hustled her back to her rack forty minutes ago. Frak, she just got out of sickbay, what was he thinking?

The problem was, he wasn’t. He’d just been so happy to have her back.

“Kara, I don’t think…” he says, but he’s already grabbing the crutches.

“Oh, come on, Apollo,” she sneers, and he’s getting really sick of the sound of his callsign. “This is what you wanted, right? Me, up and at ‘em? It’s why you sent Tigh in to do that little reverse psychology snowjob on me?” She turns without waiting for his answer.

He swallows, picks his words carefully. “Uh, what makes you think I had anything to do with that?”

Kara doesn’t answer, but he hears a snort, and can imagine the accompanying eye roll vividly, thanks to previous experience with it. Her shoulders square and her back stiffens, and Kara takes a step. Her bum leg shakes on the first step forward, and she wobbles like a newborn colt for a second, but before he can admonish her to be careful, she’s walking away. Her progress is slow, and despite her boasts, Lee could easily overtake her, ensuring his 20 cubits remain safely in his wallet.

But he waits, doesn’t want to ruin the moment or her good mood. And it’s worth it. When she gets to the end of the causeway some five minutes later, Lee following at a respectable distance, she turns and beams at him. It’s this huge, shit-eating, I-told-you-so grin, her arms outstretched, palms facing up, all “Ta-da!”, and Lee can’t help but beam back.

“See that? I said I—“ Her words cut off as a group of marines swarm around the corner and one jostles Kara’s arm. She twists to avoid him, but it’s too late, she’s already off balance, arms pinwheeling slightly, and Lee doesn’t hesitate. He drops the crutches and jumps forward, closes the distance between them in just two steps, and catches Kara, arms wrapping tight around her waist as she slumps against his chest.

The marines pass by with just a curious glance, but Kara doesn’t move. Lee grins down at the top of her head. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that? I missed some of your gloating while you were doing that lovely imitation of a windmill--” the grin fades as Kara lifts her head and he interrupts himself, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

Her face is pained, pale, and Lee shifts back, his gaze drifting down to her knee. 

“Is it your leg? Did you--”

She shakes her head, but then slowly she changes direction, nodding instead. “What if,” she stops, biting her lips, her throat working as her face twists, emotions flickering too quickly for him to catch. “What if I can’t fly again?”

He blinks and frowns at her, confused.”What- Where is this coming from? Of course, you’ll fly again, Kara. You just- you have to give it time, get the strength back--”

“But what if I don’t?” She hisses, her gaze searing, beseeching. “I frakked this knee up once and it was a godsdamn miracle that I passed the range-of-motion tests for the Fleet physical. And now... I...” she takes a breath, shakes her head, then raises her face to his again. “What if I can’t, Lee? What am I gonna do?”

The look in her eyes is wild, desperate even, and oddly, their argument from before her accident, when she’d taunted him about getting the other pilots to talk about their feelings, echoes in his head.  _“I don’t do that, okay? I put it behind me and I move on.”_

But there’s no trace of that Kara now. She’s still leaning heavily against him, the fabric of his jacket clutched in one of her hands, and it strikes Lee suddenly how small and... fragile she looks. It’s only this that makes him tighten his arms around her again, pulling her into a hug suddenly, his hand running up her back and sweeping under her hair, his palm curving around the slender nape of her neck.

He hasn’t hugged Kara in a very long time. Not since Zak’s funeral. She had been tense and stiff in his arms that day, but now she’s pliable, her face buried in his shoulder, and Lee smiles a little as he bends his mouth to her ear. The scent of military-issue shampoo fills his nose as he whispers, “You’re gonna be fine, Kara. You are. I promise, okay?”

She’s already pulling back though, her head shaking again. “You can’t. You don’t know that, Lee.” 

“Yes, I can and I do,” he squeezes her arms. “Because you are going to put this accident behind you and move on, because that is what you do.” Kara’s lips part as if to speak, but Lee’s not finished. “And  _we_ are going to walk this corridor every day--twice a day!--until,” he takes a deep breath, grins, “you’re running laps around me and have hustled me out of every frakking cubit I own.” Lee quirks an eyebrow in challenge, lets her go to stretch a hand out. “Deal?”

Her eyes are wide as she stares up at him, almost incredulous, then a slow smile spreads on Kara’s face and she slips her hand into his, fingers curling around his palm. “Deal,” she responds, her voice warm but firm again like her grip. 

They stay like that, locked together, eyes trading silent promises, until a noisy group of the maintenance crew turns into the hallway and clatters by, shooting strange looks at the Galactica’s CAG and flight instructor. They break apart hurriedly, but Lee keeps a hand hovering near Kara’s back though as they retreat to where her crutches lay on the decking. He sweeps them up and passes them to her and they turn again and start moving back towards quarters. Lee matches his strides to the quiet, rhythmic thumps of Kara’s crutches, the only sound in the now-emptied-again causeway until she speaks. 

“So Apollo, you know, I’m totally fine with stealing all your money and letting you choke on my dust and all, but, uh--” her eyes shift, gaze lighting on his face for just a second before she frowns down at the decking again, “what’s in it for you?” Kara doesn’t wait for his answer, she swings forward, moving a little faster toward the bunkroom a few yards away. 

Lee follows in Kara’s wake, lets his eyes drift down her body to admire the rear view he’s afforded by letting her take the lead. He’s so taken by it, in fact, that he’s slow to realize Kara’s waiting for a response. 

“Oh, uh, well, you know, I’m, uh, just doing my part to...uh...boost morale...and...uh...” he flounders.

“You’re totally staring at my ass, aren’t you?”

“Right,” he snorts, even as he flushes and speeds up to overtake her again. “I’m hardly that desperate, Starbuck.”

“Well, I don’t know, Lee. You did seem awfully fired up to get back to your rack and have some quality time with Mr. Happy.” She waggled her eyebrows and raised a hand, wiggling her fingers at him.

He grimaced. “You are so juvenile.”

“And  _you_ are so pathetic,” she smirked, as they reached the bunkroom finally and he swung it open to let Kara pass through the hatch. She sank down on her rack, dropping the crutches clumsily to the floor and twisting to lay down, with a contented sigh. Lee turned to his own locker, stripping his uniform off and hanging it neatly in his locker before climbing into his own rack. He didn’t close the curtain like usual, however, but twisted onto his side to face the room. Unbelievably, loud snores were already emitting from Kara’s bunk, and Lee welcomed the return of the perpetual cacophony that heralded her presence. It’d been entirely too quiet with her gone.

Exhaustion started to pull at him too, but Lee kept his eyes open as long as he could, just watching the rising and falling motion of her chest. 

When he woke the next morning, Kara was the first thing he saw. And Lee smiled and pulled himself out of bed, reaching for his wallet as he began singing loudly and off-key, “Up all day, with the rising sun...”

It was a good day for a walk.


End file.
